Version 1.2.8 of Platinum SEO plugin has been released and it is almost the same as version 1.2.7, in terms of features.It only fixes a few typo errors that caused superficial PHP bugs.(Update on 11/09/2009).

Version 1.2.7 of Platinum SEO plugin lets you specify meta keywords and meta description for wordpress Category and Tag pages.These meta tags are especially useful when you choose to index WordPress Categories and WordPress tags.

This WordPress SEO plugin provides the option “Use NoIndex for categories”, to prevent categories from being indexed by the search engines. This option helped you in two ways:

Ability to avoid duplicate content issues

Ability to control the page rank to flow to more important pages on your site (i.e. individual posts), than the category pages

However, recent changes in Google Search Engine algorithms, have limited your ability to control the flow of Page Rank to the pages you desire. Most wordpress bloggers would like to list Categories on the sidebars or as menus (at the top).Some even prefer to use breadcrumbs for their posts, which automatically adds a link to category pages.it as a TOC i.e. Table Of Contents in wordpress. This is nothing but very similar to Table Of Contents in a word document, which provides navigational links to various sections in the Word document.

Thus, every wordpress user links to Category pages on his site/blog. Adding a nofollow to such links or a meta NoIndex tag to the wordpress category pages by choosing the option “Use NoIndex for categories”, does not prevent leakage (wastage) of PR juice flowing to such category pages. Hence, it is better to index your category pages.

But then, how would you avoid duplicate content issues? Category pages could become duplicates only in the circumstances explained in the article here on WordPress SEO options (Refer the explanation under “Use NoIndex for categories”). But, such issues can occur very rarely and you can easily avoid it. For example, it can occur only in a scenario where you continue to make posts under the same category.This can be avoided by making posts under different categories, rather than making posts under the same category, sequentially.

Platinum SEO plugin now makes it even more easier by providing you the option to add meta description and meta keywords tag to the head section of your category pages.

How to add meta description and meta keywords to WordPress Categories?

Specify the keywords for each of the categories, by enclosing a PSP specific keywords tag ([keywords][/keywords]) like shown in the above picture.

Example:

[keywords]Wordpress, wordpress SEO, wordpress SEO Plugin [/keywords]

[keywords]Wordpress, wordpress SEO, wordpress SEO Plugin [/keywords]

That is all. Platinum SEO Plugin will automatically add the meta description and meta keywords tag to the head section of your wordpress category pages.

If needed, You can even display the description, on your category pages, by adding the following piece of code to your theme’s Category page.

<?php do_action('get_psp_category_description');?>

<?php do_action('get_psp_category_description'); ?>

You can even list the keywords, by adding the following piece of code to your theme’s Category page:

<?php do_action('get_psp_category_keywords');?>

<?php do_action('get_psp_category_keywords'); ?>

Platinum SEO plugin provides all the above options for tag pages as well (similar to category pages) i.e. you can add a description and keywords tag to tag pages by Navigating to Posts –> Post Tags on your wordpress dashboard and editing each of the tags.

If needed, You can even display the description, on your tag pages, by adding the following piece of code to your theme’s tag page. (But this will work only in wordpress 2.8 or above).

You can even list the keywords, by adding the following piece of code to your theme’s tag page:

Enjoy using Platinum SEO plugin. Don’t miss to check out Chennai Central plugin that will help you save bandwidth. The next version of Chennai Central, will also help you to keep track of visits by Google or Yahoo or Bing (including any other that you may configure) search engine spiders on your posts and pages.

5 comments on “WordPress Categories – Index With Platinum SEO plugin”

Very wonderful plugin for SEO… I use it for my theme pages tags with for optimize seo.

It’s possible to have more description ? [description2] [/description2] and insert it in page ?

With this, i can optimize perfectly all my tags and no duplicate content

written by Benoist

Hi there,

I am using your plugin for more than one year I think… One question… Previously I used All in One Seo Pack… Is there anyway I can import the keywords and page titles from that plugin to yours? Cause I disabled the old and activated your plugin but for the old posts I lost all the description, keywords and post titles…

Thanks,
Bogdan

written by Bogdan

one year back all in one seo and platinum seo had interchangeable description, keywords and post titles though it has changed now and hence an import feature had been introduced in this plugin.I guess you had lost it even when you were with all in one.If not try the import option once and check it out.

written by Rajesh

Hi, I know it’s been a year since this article were posted. However, I created a custom WP theme and forgotten to add category.php page. Is there possible for me to create it and add to my theme? I want to optimize my category pages, those pages are the important pages, but look ugly on SERP (the description). Hope you can help, thanks!

Rick

written by ipad apps

If you have an archive.php in your theme, it can be used to show the category pages. archive.php is commonly used for category archives, tag archives and date archives.